The Town Board agreed to sign a nonbinding “letter of intent” that would enable a selected solar development company to seek NYSERDA funding that would defray, at least in part, the initial costs of building the array. After reviewing proposals from several interested companies, the board awarded the letter to Solartech. Founded in 2009, the company manufactures photovoltaic panels and other solar equipment at its facility on Enterprise Drive in Kingston, employing up to 15 people on an as-needed basis, said Roberts.
Solartech subsequently secured a commitment from NYSERDA for two grants. (While the grant funding remains available, Roberts noted in a recent interview that NYSERDA could terminate the funding in the absence of progress on the project.) Thus armed with a commitment for the grant funding, the Kingston firm submitted a PPA, dated October 4, 2012, for the town’s consideration. The Town Board took no immediate public action on the PPA and, according to Roberts, failed to notify Solartech that it had received the document.
Observers expressed surprise when the board, at its meeting last December 18, appeared to be considering a Bronx-based company, OnForce Solar, rather than Solartech, as the foremost corporate contender for a partnership with the town. After questioning the propriety and legality of the town’s procurement process in making contact with OnForce, councilman Ken Panza met on January 9 with Roberts and Solartech’s director of business development, Christopher Alsante. Since then, Solartech has submitted a revised PPA and appears to have regained its former stature in the town’s deliberations.
(See Woodstock Times, January 24, 2013.)
Where does that leave OnForce? “My personal feeling — what the Town Board (eventually) decides is a different matter — is that it is premature to decide anything about OnForce’s status,” said Magarelli in a January 28 interview. “We need to back up and check Solartech’s financial status before (proceeding) with a second company. Solartech comes first, since it submitted the initial proposal.” [Wenk, meanwhile, has maintained contact with a Pennsylvania company, Energy in the Bank, with the understanding that negotiations with Solartech are the town’s current priority.]
Esopus project
While Woodstock contemplates the construction of a solar facility at its wastewater plant, the town of Esopus is following a similar path, pursuing plans to build a 1-megawatt solar array at the site of an abandoned landfill in the hamlet of West Park. The project’s developer is Solartech, in conjunction with American Capital Energy, a Lowell, Massachusetts, firm with an office in Larchmont, New York. Horner, who has been coordinating the Woodstock endeavor on behalf of the town, is the project manager for the Esopus facility.
The Esopus supervisor, John Coutant, reported in a January 29 interview that the town’s attorney recently completed a review of a second contract between the municipality and the developers. Next, the attorney will submit the contracts to the town board for its consideration. If the contracts prove satisfactory and the parties sign a PPA, said Coutant, installation of the solar “farm” could begin late in the spring and be completed, after six to eight weeks, by late summer.
“We want to move quickly but cautiously,” said Coutant. “We want to do what is best for the taxpayers. When any municipality has an opportunity to stabilize the price of electricity, it is an asset to all taxpayers and should be a priority, but the process has to be accurate, correct, and right. Over the course of 20 years, three or four future town boards will be bound by this agreement.”
A team from Woodstock, including Wenk and residents Steve Grenadir and Sam Magarelli, reportedly visited the Esopus site last fall, following a tour of the Solartech property at which councilwoman Magarelli was present. The Esopus project, at 1 megawatt, is 25 percent bigger than Woodstock’s putative 750-megawatt watt array, and commensurately more expensive. Published reports have put the cost of the Esopus facility at between $4.5 million and $5 million, while an OnForce executive has estimated that the Woodstock system would cost about $3 million to install.
Meanwhile, Coutant expressed praise for Horner, who was a prime mover in Woodstock’s adoption, in 2007, of a “zero-carbon initiative” and the town’s installation of solar panels on the roof of Town Hall. “He is highly skilled and highly educated in the field of solar energy,” said the Esopus official of Horner. “He has done everything absolutely right and should be recognized in the Hudson Valley as a leader in solar energy. He has proved himself in Esopus.”
